


Division of Love

by TempestRising



Series: Divisions [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: But they're dealing with it, Communication, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 04:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14180607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: It was all there, in that kiss; the Northern Lights and terrible boyfriends and cooking classes and bad days and mummies and bus rides and moors, the shows they saw and places they visited and things they tried together, choosing each other over and over again.Or: Dan and Phil are getting good at navigating their new relationship, if only Phil's last abusive boyfriend would stop coming back to haunt them.





	Division of Love

_your feet descending the stairs any_

_moment; any moment the whole world,_

_all I want of the world, coming down._

**Carl Phillips**

.***.

Sometimes Phil would slip out of bed first thing in the morning and he would put the coffee in the pot and put some music on and he'd fry up a proper full English, for no reason other than the morning suited him, and the sun would rise slowly over the rooftops, cutting jagged lines across the kitchen, and he'd pull out sausages and tomatoes and mushrooms and eggs and the minutes would pass in that strange way they did in the kitchen, a steady thrum of time, and Dan would stumble out of the room, sometimes half dressed already - they were getting old, responsibilities and meetings, rare was the day when the two of them could hole up in the flat entirely around each other - and he'd mumble a thanks to Phil.

They had been doing this dance for years. They just added a few steps. How Dan would cross to the other side of the counter and wait until the burner was off - they'd learned that the hard way - and kiss him. How Phil would put his hand in Dan's hair, or on the bare skin of his waist, or on his cheek. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. And he felt alive with the thrill of the touch.

Dan would still do the washing up, shooing Phil from the kitchen and urging him to get dressed, as if Phil was the one making them perpetually late. They no longer washed and dried side by side. They had a dishwasher now, and Phil remembered those stacks of dishes with something like nostalgia and knew that he was truly getting old.

When it came to nights out, Dan was often the most adventurous. He'd see an event on Facebook or advertised on the apartment bulletin board and would drop hints that he wanted to go, which is how they ended up in a truly dodgy pub watching a truly terrible version of Macbeth, Dan too horrified to drink and Phil being driven several pints further than he would usually go, laughing about the bad acting all the way home.

Phil got them tickets to the National theater, where they saw Hamlet done in the style of _One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest_ , and Dan liked it so much he stopped by the box office on the way out to get them tickets for the following week.

Dan's dates took them to a series of eclectic but memorable places, a walking tour of the more tourist-y London places they'd shamefully never been; a night party thrown by the British Museum where they spent the evening snogging by some several-thousand year old mummies, full of fizzy champagne and knocking against the glass often enough to leave a bruise blossoming across Phil's hip, which Dan kissed the next morning; a showing of a Pixar movie at the BFI and waffles under the Eye.

Phil preferred the dark places, the far-away places, the places they couldn't be spotted - they still weren't out on the internet, a bone of contention between them so old that they didn't even fight about it anymore, both tired of their own arguments but too stubborn to be swayed. He liked movie theaters and planetariums and the backs of buses that took them to places in the countryside. They spent an afternoon outside the city, picnicking at a castle with a hedge maze and plenty of grottoes to hide in, and they both emerged from the maze flushed and unable to look each other in the eye without blushing furiously or breaking out in laughter.

It wasn't so very different from when they were just friends. They still loved each other with a particular fierce pride, it was just easier to put a name to that protectiveness.

They talked about the weddings they were going to, five or six a year now. They talked, usually at night, side by side and staring at the dark ceiling, about the parts of each wedding they liked, and what they didn't like. If I were to do it, Phil used to say. And now he said, if _we_ were to do it. And they painted pictures of their dream weddings to each other, and found, pleased but not surprised, that they matched. Smallish. Simple-ish. A wonderful party. Lots of pictures. One day, Phil said. And Dan added, One day soon.

There were still bad days. The problem with being each other's roommates and best friends and business partners and then heaping boyfriends onto the pile of things they were to each other was that every part of their lives revolved around each other.

Sometimes, Dan wanted to call time out. Say that he wanted to talk to AmazingPhil, his YouTube senpai, not Phil Lester, his boyfriend, and Phil would say, well, I don't know how to do that, and they'd fight a little and storm off to separate rooms.

Sometimes it was worse than that, like the time after one of the weddings - there were so many now - when Dan had been drinking and Phil hadn't and they stumbled towards the bedroom and Dan had ended up on top, his forehead pressed to Phil's forehead, his hands grabbing Phil's wrists: one, two. Pinning him down. And Phil was somewhere else, in another relationship entirely, with another man entirely, a man who used to do this to him even when Phil begged him to stop, and suddenly Phil couldn't breathe. He hyperventilated. He said no. He struggled. And somewhere along the way Dan ended up on the other side of the room.

"What the fuck?" Dan said, because sometimes when he got scared he sounded angry.

Phil just sat up, bent over himself, wheezing.

Dan crept back over. Felt frighteningly sober. 

"Don't touch me," Phil begged, breathlessly.

"I didn't do anything!" Dan knew he shouldn't be like this, defensive, not when Phil was looking like that - lost, and small. "I wouldn't do anything."

"Just - just give me a minute - "

"I need to touch you. Jesus, Phil, you're shaking. Please let me. Just. Fuck." Dan put a hand on his boyfriend's back, feeling Phil's muscles jump and constrict like a frightened horse.

"I'm sorry."

"I hate him."

"I'm sorry," Phil said again. He was surprised that Dan could bundle him up like this, as if they weren't nearly the same size, as if Phil was much smaller.

Some days Phil couldn't stand to be touched at all, wouldn't even get undressed in front of Dan. There were still scars on his back and he was sure, some days, that they made him grotesquely ugly.

Dan liked to bring home things that reminded him of Phil. Flowers, often, but also sushi and mince pies and rainbow drinks from Starbucks and a new Oyster card because Phil had lost his.

Phil liked to send Dan links to articles, some funny, some sad. Phil read a lot of long nonfiction essays and sent Dan a piece about a woman in Iowa who joined AA, about a man in North Carolina whose fifty year old sister killed herself, a man contemplating the meaning of the word presence, the word still, the meaning of technology. A profile about a woman who saved lives. A short piece about an actor they both admired. Dan read these and would crawl into bed and tell Phil his favorite part, his way of saying more, please. Give me more.

For Dan's birthday, Phil gave him a book of the emails they'd sent each other while making their books. They were full of inside jokes and long musing rants and contemplative asides. It was bound and the end pages were pictures of them, the pictures that couldn't make the real book, selfies of them on a mountain, kissing; pictures taken by friends at parties, laughing at a joke long forgotten, looking at each other with identical expressions of undiluted love.

For Phil's birthday, Dan planned for him to meet up with some old university and school friends, insisting over and over again, no, you guys go out, I'll meet you later, I've got loads of work, I'll just get in the way, go on, have fun with other people. And he kissed Phil in the doorway while his friends whistled. Phil left blushing. And then Dan got to work.

He propped open the door, helped the gardeners he'd gotten to know in the past few weeks. January had settled over England like a cloak, leaving the hothouses mostly dormant except for pre-Valentine's Day roses, and when Dan had shown up with an idea the gardeners got just as excited about the project as Dan was. Young, tattooed guys tending to roses and tulips, suggesting everything from herbs to cacti to daffodils and daisies. They showed up with pots and hangers and planters, and they worked for a long afternoon to make it all perfect.

Dan texted Phil once the production was over, after giving the gardeners a huge tip and hugs and handshakes and extracting promises for them to be back in a week to haul it all away. _Come home_ , he wrote, _I miss you_.

 _Soon_ , Phil promised, and he kept his word.

Dan, unable to resist a little cliche, created a path of rose petals from the door to Phil's bedroom. And then he waited.

The door opened. There were voices. Dan hadn't thought that Phil would bring any of his friends back to the apartment, but some were from far away places, and it was getting late, and Phil probably promised bed and breakfast before a train home. There was some uncomfortable laughter. "We'll get a hotel, mate." "Don't be silly, wait a mo'. Dan! You better not be naked. I thought we said no presents, not until my actual -"

And then he opened the door, and Dan got to watch in delighted surprise as Phil drank it in. They'd managed to fill the room with literally hundreds of flowers of all shapes and sizes. Filling it to the brim with green, and good earth, and flowers as big as baby's heads, drooping bells of flowers, flowers like fireworks of color in the dead of winter.

"Oh my god, Dan!" Phil had his hands up, covering his smile, and then he flung them out, ambushing Dan in a huge hug, his head on Dan's shoulder, blinking at the room with childlike glee. 

"It's a garden," Dan said, holding Phil tight. "I know you always wanted one. Do you like it? Don't worry, it'll be gone next week. Well, you can pick out whatever flowers you want to keep, of course, but you don't have to live in a greenhouse forever, I just thought -"

Phil kissed him hard on the mouth. "I love it. I love you. Show me everything."

Dan took him on a tour of the garden, the vases arranged with clipped flowers, the happy sunflowers as tall as they were, the mint and lavender and jasmine, and already it was smelling lovely and fresh, as if by willing it they could create spring. Phil's friends, a pair that had indeed come from a long way off, joined the tour and exclaimed in all the right places and laughed with Dan as Phil declared he wanted to keep everything, absolutely everything, reaching out and squeezing Dan's hand, watching Dan's lips as he talked about all the things he'd learned from the gardeners, how there was a time to water and a time to plant and a time to wait, and watch good things grow.

When it came to picking out gifts for the many weddings they were invited to, Phil put Dan in charge - the garden proved how thoughtful he could be - while Phil wrote out the cards, the thank-you-for-inviting-us cards, and remembered to send pictures to the bride and groom.

If they had friends over, Phil played host, always knowing when to ask if they wanted more tea, another glass of wine, taking coats and setting music and lighting candles. He was good at atmosphere, and Dan set the tone of conversation, navigating easily between small talk and those long, meandering conversations about everything: the latest Marvel movie, roommate issues, babies, YouTube drama, parents, school stories, apartment hunting, house hunting, weddings, relationships, how to properly clean cast-iron cookware. Phil was on his feet the whole time, refilling glasses, taking plates, offering snacks, and Dan would smile at him, and Phil would smile back.

Dan liked to keep the counters clean, famously throwing away any piece of paper that remotely resembled trash. Phil liked to order magazines, and read them while Dan played Mario Cart, and he protected the magazines with a fierce passion.

Dan switched his anti-depressant medication to one that he couldn't drink on, not a drop, and he tried not to take it personally when Phil's shoulders lowered a little at the news, as if he was letting out a breath he'd been holding a long, long time.

They both had habits that they used to procrastinate, and there was an ever-growing list. They went on walks, mostly silent sunset strolls where Phil would dart across streets and lanes of traffic to pet dogs, Dan coming up behind him after checking for cars. They cleaned (usually not at the same time) Dan clearing surfaces and talking out loud to himself about potential video ideas/band names, Phil pulling out the broom or vacuum mid-day, shouting song lyrics over the sound. They had sex, and then realized that was more fun than all of their other procrastination techniques combined and had more sex.

Phil suggested near the beginning of their time together that they should get tested. Dan propped himself on one elbow. "I honestly have never been tested. How do you know if you have something? I don't feel sick. I don't think anyone I've been with has been sick."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Phil just rolled over on his back. "They're going to trace the next big outbreak back to you. You'll be patient zero." He cracked open one eye. "I'm serious, though. We should get tested. Before we, you know, go any further."

"Okay," Dan said amicably, but a stitch had appeared between his eyes. "Should I be worried?"

Phil shrugged. Picked at a loose string on his sheets. They'd agreed not to call him by name, that last awful boyfriend. "Sometimes he didn't use protection," he tried to keep his voice as neutral and even possible, but his hands shook. That was always his big giveaway.

Dan was watching him closely, and cursed.

"The thing is," Phil wasn't looking at him anymore, wasn't really looking at anything, "sometimes I'd wake up, and I'd know something had happened, but I wouldn't remember it."

Dan took a second to wrap his head around that. "He drugged you?"

Phil picked at the loose thread. His neck and face were red and he wasn't looking at Dan anymore. He shrugged, then nodded. Took a deep, watery breath. "So, I think we should get tested. I'm sorry. I should have said before."

Dan had known the boy while Phil dated him. Knew him from the times he dropped by the flat to pick Phil up for dates, from their sporadic double dates or even more rare occasions of Dan third wheeling. For a monster, he had seemed remarkably human. Now that Dan knew what had been happening he could see the ticks that had appeared in Phil, how he had distanced himself from Dan for that year, how he had become jumpy and short-tempered. "I hate him," Dan bit out venomously, "I hate that he's still hurting you."

They went to the beach and found smooth, flat stones, and Dan taught Phil how to skip them across the shallow water when the tide was out, and Phil pointed at tide pools and gently extracted sea snails, mollusks, sand crabs, prodding them gently to show Dan legs and claws and eyes, depositing them back in the water like a child after show-and-tell.

The handful of their fans who were convinced they were together got louder.

They went on tour, and Phil closed his eyes for days, too carsick to see the enormous countries rolling by, the wheat and fields, the highways winking with lights of other cars, other people speeding through their other lives. Dan would watch these cars go by and feel small and content in his smallness. They listened to audiobooks, since Phil could do that with his eyes closed. They finally got through all of _Game of Thrones_ , then started on _Harry Potter_ just to hear the rolling cadence, Dan listening long after Phil fell into an uneasy sleep.

In November there was a small convention in the Highlands that they skipped every year until Dan finally admitted that he'd never been North of Edinburgh and Phil promptly booked the train tickets. They sped through the moors reading bits of books out loud to each other, Phil sounding like the English major he was as he talked about Heathcliff striding across the moors, and how the moors were distinctly English, a metaphor for an English version of the wilderness that was at once both wild and utterly knowable, a finite sprawl in comparison to the mountains, savannas, and plains of other countries, and Dan let him lecture, applauding happily at the end of the talk and declaring that if his English teacher had spoken with half of Phil's enthusiasm Dan might have stayed in school. Phil blushed and lowered his voice and, rather more self-consciously, kept talking about the meanings of the moors until they were further North and the night took over the day, a gentle rain pounding against the windows. They were deposited on a dark station platform, the train chugging back into the inky evening and out of sight.

There was nothing for it. No cabs, no wifi, no cell service. They started to walk in the direction of village lights, feeling damp, the world smelling of hay and Halloween, and Phil had to keep reminding himself that he was still in the UK.

A single car came down the single lane and stopped. Did they need a lift? Did they have some place to stay?

Yes, Dan said. And yes. A pub. But anyplace dry, Dan added, would be an improvement.

The driver of the car was around their age, wiry and well-muscled. A dog sat in his passenger seat, so Dan and Phil and their weekend bags got in the back, repeating their thanks as they were driven into town. Phil pet the dog and tried to stop shivering. The rain stopped.

"Ye migh be lucky boys." Dan had to strain to understand the accent. Leaned closer. The dog licked his face. "We've had lights these past nights."

"Lights?"

They were coming into the village. Windows lit golden from the inside. Chimneys smoking. Dan could easily imagine they'd been spirited back in time. They stopped at a particular well-lit home and their kind driver got out, jerking his head to the sky.

It was just faint tendrils, green and blue streaks at the bottom of the horizon, half hidden by the clouds that flew by at alarming speeds, but they were definitely there, undulating across the sky. The Northern Lights. Phil reached for Dan's hand and Dan brought it up to his mouth, kissing the knuckles, looking up.

The pub was already closed for the night but the owner's wife spooned some beef and potatoes out of a big pot and several cats curled up on tables and prowled across the floor and there was seed-studded bread and rich butter and the room was plain but filled with clean, warm blankets, and in deference to the owners Dan and Phil refrained from doing anything other than making out under the ever-rising eyes of the Northern Lights.

They both learned about depression, slowly, together, as Dan started to tell people in his life about this thing that occasionally consumed him, swallowed him whole; how even when he was getting better he was still sick, like an alcoholic who hasn't had a drink in years can still be sick with alcoholism; how it was a disease, and he would have to manage it for at least the foreseeable future, which might be always. And Phil watched from the sidelines and struggled to help, especially on those days when the darkness would come and Dan would ask him, quietly, politely, to please go away, that he would be better by tomorrow. And he usually was.

Dan hated to be babied, especially after those dark days, and would snap and become sullen if he suspected anyone was trying to treat him gently, provoking Phil to say something horrible, and it would almost always work.

Phil couldn't stand dirty talk, or anything close to humiliation, or being tied up or pinned down, even by Dan's bare hands. He was afraid that Dan would get bored, would find their sex life hopelessly vanilla, would find Phil's seemingly endless list of invisible triggers too difficult to deal with.

One time, sweat-slick and warm, bare bodies against each other on the small bed, Phil had put his mouth on Dan, and Dan had put his hands in Phil's hair, and writhing in ecstasy he'd tugged just a little too hard, and Phil had choked and, looking into Dan's dazed eyes, the half-grin on his face, Phil had immediately burst into tears, sobbing, naked, pale body bent in the moonlight. He didn't know what had set him off, only that when Dan finally did touch him again it felt like his skin was a live wire, like he was being burned. He should be over this by now, damnit, and it only seemed to be getting worse.

They spent entire days shopping, Dan far more interested in clothes than Phil was, Phil happy enough to trail behind, a book or phone in hand, flopping onto the couches and chairs left out at these types of shops for the boyfriends. Looking up whenever Dan came out in seemingly endless combinations of ever-more-ridiculous clothes. Perfect. Lovely. Catwalk! Give us a twirl! 10/10! You're a star, Daniel! You're my muse! Getting loud enough to be stink-eyed out of the store, where Phil would flop into another chair and do it again.

One Christmas, after they came out to their families (mixed results: Dan's family thought they'd been together for eight years, and Dan tried to explain but gave up halfway through) Martyn gifted them a series of cooking classes. Two months, eight sessions, ranging from bread making to deboning an entire chicken. Dan and Phil were the youngest people in the class by twenty years, and the thoroughly British couples were charmed by the young men who shouted at each other as they got flour everywhere, trying very hard and somehow mucking up the process every time, Phil overenthusiastic and Dan not very interested in recipes. They had loads of fun and brought home lumpy, tinfoiled bakes every week.

When they stayed in, Dan usually picked the video games and Phil picked the movies.

Their cooking classes were such a success that Phil signed them up for crafting classes at a local hardware shop where they made bird feeders and took apart toasters. In these classes, Dan and Phil were by far the oldest, most of the rest of the class comprised of teenagers who worshiped the pair, asking endless questions about YouTube and online creators in general and how much money they made and was university even worth it and did they have any relationship advice, and between making a piggy bank and learning how to use a jigsaw Dan and Phil became the defacto mentors of a dozen worryingly bright sixth formers. It was like internet support group, Dan said after every class, but without the booze.

Dan still wasn't drinking, despite the fact that he'd changed medications. Phil was happy enough to go without.

And perhaps it was inevitable, that after a year of almost-conversations, of small flinches and crying jags, of secrets and how Phil's eyes were shutter and go blank around raised voices - after a year, and Dan thought he understood most of it, learned to knock or clear his throat, to announce himself before touching Phil, to phrase sex as a suggestion and never something he wanted or needed, for fear that Phil couldn't or wouldn't refuse - after a year of learning these quirks, of course in a city of nine million people they run into Phil's ex in the Sainsbury aisle, next to the milk.

Dan saw him first, and thought about punching him. He'd had long, vivid daydreams about what he would do or say to this man if he ever saw him again, of getting the police involved, of vigilante justice, of trying to make him understand the ways that Phil had fallen apart and was still trying to piece himself together, and how fucking brave Phil was, and how Dan didn't think this boy deserved, even, to be thought of as all the way human.

But before any of those fantasies could come to pass, the boy, who was called George and didn't look monstrous at all, dark-eyed and ginger and muscled and windswept, tattooed with a smirk living in the corner of his mouth, said, "Phil! It's been a long time."

And Phil looked up and Dan watched Phil's face. Fear, and then helpless resignation, and Phil put the milk he'd been holding back down, his spine bending carefully. There was a time where every twist brought him pain, bruises on top of bruises.

"Let's get out of here," Dan suggested, and instead of taking Phil by the elbow, steering him away as he did so often, he twined his fingers with Phil's. A suggestion, not a command. Their grocery cart half-full. Dan not thinking at all of groceries, just home, and bed. Phil's hand was shaking in his. Shaking already.

"How you doing?" George asked. Smiling. At Dan. They had known each other, too. Maybe George thought that Dan had always known. Maybe even approved. Dan felt sick, and dizzy, and disappointed in his own lack of ability to hurt this man in a fraction of the ways he'd hurt Phil. "Dan?"

George put a hand on Dan's shoulder, the way anyone would, to get someone's attention. Innocuous. They were in a crowded grocery store. There were suited men and children and women in jumpers.

Phil shoved his body in front of Dan's, face inches from George's face. "Don't touch him," Phil said, and his voice shook and broke. "Don't talk to him. Just go, George. Just - just walk away."

"You're mad," George said, nodding as if this was to be expected. "Look, I know it's been years, but I've always felt awful about how we left things. I've changed! I met someone."

Dan was trying to pull Phil away but he was like a block of stone, if blocks of stone shook all over, goosebumps pimpling skin.

"And you're obviously together, so I was kind of right the whole time." George rolled his eyes at Dan. "Phil was always head over heels for you. Made me insanely jealous, if I'm honest."

Dan felt sick. Imagined, suddenly, how George could use Dan's relationship with Phil as an excuse to hurt Phil, even though it had just been a friendship, then, (and partnership, and roommates...) How the constant texts and jokes and live-in domesticity could have been used as a reason to give Phil bruises, to ridicule him, to rape him.

Phil had gone pale. Dan knew this look, the vacant, desperate look of being trapped. And Dan didn't punch George, or impale him on a Sainsbury sausage. Instead, he grabbed Phil's hand. And he walked away.

They made it to the taxi - they were blocks from home, a fifteen minute walk, but Dan needed to be there now - before Phil started talking. "He's in a relationship."

"Fuck him. I can't believe he has the nerve to come up and talk to us. He's fucking lucky you never pressed charged. Jesus Christ, Phil, you're shaking. Come here. You're cold as ice. Have my sweater."

But Phil wasn't taking the sweater. He'd turned in his seat and was looking back at the grocery store. "He's in a relationship."

"So what? Screw him. You're in a relationship, too."

"What if - " the pale column of Phil's throat bobbing. "What if he's hurting them, too?"

Dan blinked. Then threw his arms around Phil. They were both shaking in their seats. "Do you think?" Phil asked quietly. They were almost at the flat. They had no groceries. They'd have to order in pizza. It was a night for pizza. "Do you think he's hurting them?"

Yes. Dan thought that if George had gotten away with it once, he would probably try it again, and again. Abuse was about power. He didn't know what answer to give. They were at the house. Dan opened his door, then went around to his side and opened Phil's. He hugged Phil, there on the street. He didn't give an answer. He thought that was probably its own answer.

Their Sim grandchild started falling in love with the boy next store, and Dan and Phil followed Dab and Evan's example and spent an afternoon cloud gazing. They fell asleep in the middle of St. James Park, and when they stood up there were grass stains on their butts and backs.

A year of going to the gym regularly, and Dan was starting to bulk up while Phil slimmed down. Dan took up boxing, and imagined it was George's face, and did quite well. He suggested Phil do the same, but Phil preferred yoga and running and had recently been spending time on a machine that simulated rowing.

When they ordered pizza, Dan liked all vegetarian but rarely bothered to actually be the one to call so Phil would sometimes slip sausage on there, too.

They went all over the world together. They rarely had sex on the bus but always had sex in hotel rooms. They promised each other they'd see one sunrise in every country, but usually when the alarm went off Dan would press the snooze button, and press it again, until finally the whole world was quiet, and the sun came out, and they slept in great white mounds of sheets that smelled of cotton and sterile hotel rooms and each other, and they were home.

It had been a year, and it was Christmas again, and Dan came back from the store to find Phil in his socks, sticking a star on top of a tree that already twinkled with lights. "I didn't mean to start without you," Phil said, straightening the star. He was on tiptoes and his Christmas sweater rode up in the back, a smooth expanse of hip. "But once it was all out I couldn't resist. Have a bauble."

"It's lovely," Dan said.

Phil looked over his shoulder. "You look like you've had a day." He was wearing his glasses. And pajama bottoms. There was a half-empty mug of tea on the counter. Sometimes it struck Dan as ridiculous, that they could live here together, that anyone could be this lucky, and he vowed to remember the mug of tea and Phil's socks the next time the darkness swallowed him. It didn't work like that, of course, but Dan made himself remember anyway.

Now, Dan just made grabby hands at Phil until he crossed the room, stepping carefully over open boxes of baubles and sheets of wrapping paper. They were hopelessly behind. They'd never make it to Christmas. They'd made entirely too many promises this year. They stood there, and looked at the tree. "It looks good from far away," Phil sighed, happily. "Happy anniversary."

Dan wasn't looking at the tree anymore. They'd had so many anniversaries, and so many more stretching ahead of them, an endless fold of years. When they kissed, Dan pushed all of himself into the kiss, and Phil absorbed him. And it was all there, in that moment; the Northern Lights and terrible boyfriends and cooking classes and bad days and mummies and bus rides and moors, the shows they saw and places they visited and things they tried together, choosing each other over and over again. Some people described relationships as a choice, to wake up and love the same person day in and day out, but Dan thought of it as a gift. Love like a grand prize. Love like coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> I was already halfway through writing this fic when my little sister requested a Great British Bake Off AU. Sorry! Maybe next time.


End file.
